How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI ResponsesRead more

An Instacart shopper holds his badge. Photo by Shutterstock.

Instacart Plans Small-Business Service, Taking Aim at Amazon and Walmart

Photo: An Instacart shopper holds his badge. Photo by Shutterstock.

Instacart is gearing up to launch a version of its site tailored to small businesses, a person familiar with the matter said, representing a challenge to Amazon and Walmart as the delivery giant looks to boost revenue ahead of potentially going public.

The small-business offering, which the company is developing under the name Instacart Business, would display a curated selection of items such as office supplies, cleaning products and snacks, the person said.

The move could help Instacart broaden its appeal beyond home grocery deliveries and comes as the company has been in a holding pattern on a long-awaited initial public offering. Instacart has been keeping its IPO paperwork up to date and could push forward once market conditions improve, The Information reported on Tuesday.

Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
Microsoft's Satya Nadella, left, and Peter Lee. Photo by Bloomberg, Microsoft
Exclusive
How Microsoft Swallowed Its Pride to Make a Massive Bet on OpenAI
Satya Nadella didn’t want to hear it. Last December, Peter Lee, who oversees Microsoft’s sprawling research efforts, was briefing Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, and his deputies about a series of tests Microsoft had conducted of GPT-4, the then-unreleased new artificial intelligence large-language model built by OpenAI.
Chris Britt, co-founder and CEO of Chime.
Exclusive startups Finance
Chime’s Slowdown Highlights Limits of Bank Disruptors
Chime found a way to offer zero-fee banking services without being a bank itself. But that approach is starting to show its limits.
Art by Clark Miller
The AI Age e-commerce ai
How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI Responses
When Andy Wilson’s company received its first successful client referral through ChatGPT, he was shaken to his core.
Art by Clark Miller
The Big Read markets Finance
The Master of Destruction Rides Again
In the spring of 2022, the irascible Wall Street short seller Marc Cohodes was in a particularly foul mood.
Art by Mike Sullivan
startups asia
Venture Capitalists Face Pressure to Divest From China
Silicon Valley venture capitalists are coming to terms with a new reality: Their once-prized China investments may be victims of a simmering cold war.
Art by Clark Miller.
Social Studies culture
The Day TikTok Went Dark in India
On June 29, 2020, as thunderstorms swept Mumbai and daily Covid-19 cases in India surged by almost 20,000, millions of people began experiencing a flood of network errors on their mobile devices.